Page 112 of Alien War Daddy's Got Rizz
I turn away, because if I keep looking at him I’ll either scream or break.
And I can’t do either right now.
I walk a few paces, arms folded tight against my ribs. The air in the atrium is warm, but I feel cold all over. Like I’ve stepped into water that doesn’t want me.
“So what now?” I whisper.
“I don’t know.” His voice is quiet behind me. “You asked for the truth. I gave it to you.”
“And you think that’s enough?”
“No. But it’s all I have.”
I spin to face him again. “You didn’t just cut down a network, Grau. You didn’t just break Tidball. You built something else in its place. Something that hasyour nameon it. That’s what scares me. That you’re not just doing this for me. You’re doing it because youlikeit.”
He doesn’t deny it.
And somehow, that honesty wounds me more than a lie ever could.
“I used to think I could change you,” I say, more to myself than to him. “Make you into something... safer.”
“I never wanted to be safe,” he replies. “I wanted to be yours.”
The silence between us stretches wide and electric. The city hums far below, indifferent to the storm unraveling between two people who once thought they were untouchable.
“I don’t forgive you,” I say, finally.
“I wouldn’t believe you if you did.”
“But I’m not leaving.”
That makes him go still. The tension in his shoulders shifts. His jaw tightens. He takes a breath like he’s been holding it for days.
“I don’t know if that makes you brave or foolish,” he murmurs.
“Maybe both.” I step closer. “Maybe I’m finally just being honest.”
He reaches for me, slow, like he’s afraid I’ll vanish if he moves too fast. I let him. His hand cups the side of my face, rough and warm, callused fingers brushing over skin that still remembers his touch like a vow.
“I’m not what you need,” he says, barely audible.
“But you’re what I want.” I rest my hand over his. “And if this is what loving you looks like... if this is what it costs…”
My voice falters.
Because I don’t know the end of that sentence yet.
Maybe I never will.
So I let it hang between us—unfinished, unresolved. A question wrapped in fire and grief and the taste of something dangerously close to forever.
Nothing between us will ever be simple again.
But I don’t turn away.
And neither does he.
CHAPTER 20
